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I.
“No, no--” H.G. laughed between counting, “you must step on the 'one'!” She straightened Pete's shoulders briskly, then caught him at the hand and shoulder and held him there, swaying them both lightly back and forth until one phrase of the waltz ended and with a cry of “One!” she launched them into a new patter of steps, counting aloud and laughing as Pete stepped on his own foot and hopped his way, wincing, through a twirl.
Claudia, who had clambered up onto the third tier of artifacts above the aisle and was rummaging in a square case of rough, blond wood, pulled out a thick disc wrapped in paper and squinted at the inventory screen clipped to the shelf. “You might be stuck with waltzing, twinkle toes,” she called down to Pete, just as he caught the toe of his sneaker on the foot of P.L. Travers' umbrella stand and managed, by some marine-trained reflex, to turn a stumble into a somersault that landed him at the foot of her ladder. “All the rest are marching music,” Claudia announced, wrinkling her nose. “John Philip Sousa? Who ever heard of him?”
“Well some of us have!” H.G. interjected, coming to rest with her weight poised on one foot, her cheeks flushed. “Ridiculous American stuff, but really rather stirring.” The phonograph, whose handle continued to turn itself, blared the final bars of the waltz, sighed itself to silence, then wheezed back up to speed and abruptly fan-fared the beginning of the waltz again. From somewhere nearby behind the shelves, Trailer howled along with the brassy introduction. H.G. grabbed Pete's forearm, trying to pull him to his feet.
“Come on, come on!” she insisted. “You'll get it!”
Pete shook his head adamantly. “Not until I get a doughnut. You should try this with Artie—he's a pianist, he can probably actually count to three!”
“Plus he's practically as old as you are!” Claudia called over her shoulder at H.G. “He probably remembers this song.”
H.G. narrowed her eyes skeptically at both of them, but couldn't stop smiling, her feet already sketching triangles across the floor. “Ah!” she breathed dramatically. “I used to dance this at the Rose and Crown. I wasn't supposed to be there, of course-- Claudia! Come lead this bit!”
“Nuh-uh.” Claudia clung to the ladder.
“But you like to dance!”
“Yeah, but I do it my way. This-- this--” Claudia flapped a hand at H.G.'s dipping, swaying turns-- “I can't do that.”
“I can.” Myka stepped into the end of the aisle and folded her arms, grinning at H.G.'s active feet.
Pete snorted. “Of course you can!” He raised his voice two octaves, propping himself up on his elbows. “I've read all the old books and know what all the dead Shakespeare people say, and I know old granny dances and-- aaagh!” He rolled out of the way as Myka raised a threatening foot above his stomach. “Don't stomp me! I need to be hungry later. Artie's baking cookies.”
Myka raised an eyebrow, cocking her head to one side as Trailer howled plaintively from beyond the exit-less Bed & Breakfast. “And does Artie know you're using the original Volta Laboratory phonograph for dance lessons when you're supposed to be doing inventory? And where's Steve?”
“Yes!” H.G. exclaimed. “Surely he knows the latest waltz!”
Claudia snorted and laughed. “Even Jinxy might be a little out of the waltz loop.”
Helena turned exaggeratedly widened eyes on Myka. “You're my only hope of a dance before the season ends and I'm sent home from Bath without a single proposal.”
Myka stepped forward and held out a hand, shaking back the cuff of her blazer. “Then I suppose I'd better ask you for this dance.”
“It's high time someone did!” And with a flash of a smile and a quick grip of hands, H.G.'s left perched behind Myka's shoulder and Myka's right against H.G.'s shoulder blades, they were off, dashing and twirling down the aisle, Myka with a fencer's clean steps and H.G. sparkling as she tossed off swift turns of her head and shoulders to accent the quick clip of the music.
This time, when the music ended, Claudia slid down the ladder and stopped the wax-coated cylinder as Myka whirled H.G. into a tight hold and they both bowed elaborately. Pete applauded and whistled and Myka gave him a grinning nod, still holding H.G.'s hand. “And that,” H.G. said, a little out of breath and brushing hair off her cheeks, “is how it's done at the Rose and Crown!”
II.
(Several months earlier...)
Myka paused half-way into the dining room to rest the piercing pain that was her forehead against the doorframe. Leena, who had just pulled back the curtains to let in mid-morning sun, turned around at Myka's muffled groan.
Leena smiled. “Long night?”
Myka looked at her pitifully, brow wrinkled and hair curling in rumpled waves around her face. “Mmph. What--?” She blinked uncomfortably and shuffled slowly towards a chair at the breakfast table, which she slid into carefully, bracing herself with both hands. She rolled stiff shoulders with a wince. “Was there a-- some sort of-- short-term memory-erasing artifact?” She opened and shut her mouth once or twice and made a sour face at the cottony texture of her tongue. “An... explosion? Something that left me sensitive to light, because--”
Artie cleared his throat loudly from behind the plate of pastries and large file folder that obscured his face except for his emphatically raised eyebrows. “Dehydration, symptoms of intoxication consistent with inferior beer or whiskey, and pronounced, dare I say stubborn and persisting melancholia. May also cause attempts to dance slowly and very close—and, may I add, badly—and--” he coughed sharply-- “and to grope those trying to get you home to bed.”
Myka licked her lips and furrowed her whole face at him, brain trying to catch up. “...what?” she said finally.
Leena ran a sympathetic hand over Myka's shoulder and poured her a cup of coffee. Myka wrapped grateful, if somewhat badly aimed hands around it and inhaled brain-clearing steam. “What?” Myka said again to Artie, more sharply this time. “What are you saying? Are you implying I—what—went out drinking while I was working last night? I was in the warehouse, Artie, making sure Zhou Xuan’s album collection wasn't going to be able to get out of its case again—and—” suddenly she broke off, then clapped her lips together. “Oh,” she said. She took a quick sip of coffee.
Artie tilted his file folder down to the table and looked at her pointedly. “The Blue Room jukebox might ring a bell.”
Myka managed a tight, awkward smile. “Now it does.”
Pete had gone looking for Myka when, at around 11:30, after he and Claudia had finished a long and probably top-priority inspection of the motorbike aisle, and had tested the weight-bearing capacity of the least dangerous of the self-propelling sidecars (two adults, it turned out, could ride the length of sixteen aisles at about 45 mph before it ran out of steam), Myka still hadn't come back to the office to drive them home to the B&B for the night. The warehouse normally closed down around six or seven—whenever they could sustain a 'normal' schedule for more than a few days, which wasn't often. That week, Artie's burst of insomnia after he'd bagged the original lens of the Krogness-Størmer camera (designed to capture the first successful images of the aurora borealis) had led to some odd working hours. Meaning that Artie was still in the office, and Claudia stayed there to tease him about Dr. Vanessa and argue with him about the latest power grid flare-ups while Pete took the long way, on foot, to the music aisle.
He was walking lightly, remembering the blast of warehouse-tingly air on his face as the sidecar accelerated, making motor noises in his throat and pretending to steer with one hand while the other waved to imaginary fans, murmuring “And it's Lattimer! Again for the win! First across the finish line! Yesssss!” and then doing the cheering fans just under his breath, when he heard music.
He paused mid-wave. “Mykes?” he called, and picked up his pace.
As he got closer to the music aisle he could hear twangy guitar and a low voice rising every now and then in a broken high note.
--I'm crazy for tryin'
and crazy for cryin'
and I'm craay-zy for lo-o-vin' you--
It seemed he could also hear a low murmur of many voices, the clink of glasses, the shuffle of shoes. He twitched his nose. Cigarette smoke? In the warehouse? When he turned into the music aisle, the light was dim and blue, and it took him a moment to see Myka huddled against the base of a jukebox whose lights played gold and pink on her hair, her shoulders pressed back against it and her knees tucked up against her chest.
“Hey-- Mykes?” he said hesitantly, slowing his stride. “You okay? I hope that isn't you smoking over here, Artie'll have a--” His voice trailed off as he saw the wet pools below her eyes catch the blue and pink light, and saw with a little pang how her eyelashes stuck together and the back of one of her hands was wet, too, and smeared with eye makeup, and that her usual strict-and-tidy blazer was bunched up on the floor underneath her, and she had one boot-heel on it and wasn't even noticing.
Myka inhaled a deep, shuddering sob of a breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and made a high, hurt noise. More tears slid out. Pete squatted in front of her, his hands moving a little helplessly in multiple directions at once. The jukebox should have been too loud right up close, but it wasn't; it was soothing and so sad, like a jacket left on your car seat by someone you'd never see again, still a little warm, with the smell of their hair at the collar, and the sleeves a little too long for you when you pulled it on--
Pete shook himself. “ Myka!” he said. “What's the matter? Are you okay? Talk to me.”
Myka shook her head, rolling it against the jukebox. She hiccuped a little, and her throat couldn't seem to form words for a moment. Pete pushed her hair back gently from one wet cheek. Myka leaned the weight of her head slowly against his hand. She shivered. “Pete, I really miss her,” she whispered. Her voice cracked and she repeated, “I really miss her, Pete,” her shoulders shaking and her face twisting as she curled in on herself. Pete scooted closer and put his arms around her, so that she could rest her forehead against his shoulder.
“I know,” he said at last, holding her hunched back and rocking her a little from side to side. “I know, Mykes.”
Above them he heard the click of a new record sliding into place. Myka's breath smelled a little too familiar, like rye and warmth and trying too hard to forget things. But Myka would never drink like this—alone, in the warehouse. A voice crooned above his ear:
I love you sooo much
it hurts me
darlin' that's why
I'm so blue--
Pete held Myka back by the shoulders and tried to catch her gaze through the hazy misery that hung about her face. “Sit tight, Mykes,” he muttered. “Let's see what this baby's about.” Keeping one hand on her shoulder, he half-stood to read the artifact monitor, scanning the text and reading bits aloud: “Greenwich Village, 1955... lesbian bar... 'you are a stranger here but once'... exacerbates gloomy emotional states...”
--have you ever been lonely?
Have you ever been blue?--
“Damn,” Pete sighed as he finished reading. “I'm taking you home. Sounds like you'll have a nasty hangover, but you'll be okay. C'mon, let's stand you up--”
Myka gripped his hand but shook her head, pressing her lips together and taking shaky breaths. “Pete—I know what she did, but I-- just want her to come back. I'm-- so lonesome!”
“Who says 'lonesome'?” Pete tried to laugh, hauling her arms over his shoulder and heaving her onto staggering feet. “Not even bookworms! Sounds like a song lyric, huh?”
Strange! --that you stopped loving me!
Was he imagining that the jukebox sounded a little louder, harsher, that its lights blinked a little darker? Myka wrapped her arms around him suddenly and pressed her face to his neck. He wrinkled his nose. “Mykes, you smell like a cheap shot.”
“Dance with me!” she gulped in a hoarse voice, her hands sliding down his back. Pete realized belatedly where they were heading and darted aside with a yelp, catching her wrists with his hands and trying to hold her at arm's length.
“Myka!” he shouted, then tried to calm his voice. The jukebox, unflappable, kept up its moody tune. Myka's lower lip trembled.
--If lovin' you means I'm weak,
then I'm weak--
“I've got her memory,” Myka murmured earnestly, sniffing. “I've got her class ring, that proved she cared--” She stumbled a little and Pete held her up, trying not to get too close and wishing, really wishing, he had the sidecar with him now. “I've got these little things--” Myka broke off, sobbing, hanging against his arms.
“A class ring,” Pete grumbled to himself. “Dangerous crazy woman gives her a grappler and she thinks they're going steady. Well—here goes nothing--” and he threw one arm firmly around Myka's shoulders and rooted in his pocket with his other hand for his Farnsworth, trying to maintain an awkward balance of restraint and comfort as Myka hiccuped, wiped her nose on his sleeve, and then tried to nuzzle his neck again, which caused him to yelp and twitch away just as Artie answered his call.
In the end Claudia did fetch the sidecar, and Artie—of all people—thought to fetch the case for H.G.'s grappler, which Myka wrapped her arms around as Pete drove her at 45 miles per hour away from the music aisle, with a plaintive voice singing behind them--
I'm gonna be so alone without you--
Until finally Artie gooed it and, purple and dripping, it fizzled to a stop. “Damnit,” Artie muttered at the machine, toweling it off before he left. “Can't you ever just leave us alone?”
At the breakfast table, Myka finished her coffee and turned ginger attention to a glass of orange juice and a plain piece of toast. “Well,” she managed with a bland smile and distant eyes, “thanks for bringing me home.”
Artie's eyebrows went up and down rapidly for a moment as he chewed the inside of his cheek. Finally he put an awkward hand on Myka's and patted it, then squeezed, then hastily withdrew. He looked around briskly, and Leena turned away from the table with a hidden smile, pretending she hadn't seen, and carried the empty pastry plate out of the room.
Myka ran both hands over her face, pressing for a moment against her eyelids and cheeks. She set her hands carefully on the table and looked at them. “I still miss her this morning,” she said quietly.
Artie looked at her and paused. “I know,” he said gruffly.